Marc Weber: Four talking points ahead of MLS conference finals

We’re down to the last four teams in the MLS playoffs, so here are four talking points ahead of Tuesday’s first-leg conference finals.

Canada takes centre stage

That’s centre with an “re”. You can imagine what some folks at Major League Soccer HQ were thinking as not one but two New York teams were cut down by Canadian clubs in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Montreal bested the Red Bulls 3-1 on aggregate and Toronto humbled New York City 7-0 over two legs to set up this tantalizing all-Canadian east final. Whatever happens, a Canadian club will play for MLS Cup for the first time.

The series begins Tuesday at Olympic Stadium in Montreal and shifts to BMO Field in Toronto on Nov. 30. More than 60,000 fans are expected for the opener, while TFC is adding 6,000 temporary seats to get to 36,000 for the second leg.

Almost 100,000 fans over two legs, watching MLS soccer? How’s that for an advert for the league and club soccer in this country?

All that’s left to do is for the players to deliver. We’ve got two of the league’s best to watch.

Toronto’s maestro, Sebastian Giovinco, is two seasons into his MLS career and can already lay claim to the title of best player in league history (43 goals, 33 assists in 65 games). Somehow, he’s not one of three finalists for MLS MVP this season. But that seems to have only served as further fuel for his fire, along with the much-debated Italy snubs.

The Impact can counter with Argentine playmaker Ignacio Piatti, who is also worth the price of admission, as Whitecaps fans regrettably found out in week one this season. Piatti has 20 goals and seven assists in 35 games in 2016.

Montreal midfielder Patrice Bernier told Sportsnet that he hopes this series will “ignite soccer in Canada,” and inspire a generation out east to take up the game. A bit ambitious, perhaps, but it can only help.

But before we get too patriotic, Bernier was one of just two Canadian starters, combined, as Montreal and Toronto took the field in the semifinals. TFC’s Jonathan Osorio was the other.

Just like in Vancouver, developing impact Canadians remains very much a work in progress.

Meanwhile, out West…

The star power in this series has taken a hit.

Colorado goalkeeper Tim Howard — the hero of a penalty shootout win over L.A. in the conference semifinal — is done for the season after tearing a groin muscle playing for the U.S. national team. And Seattle’s Clint Dempsey has been out with an irregular heartbeat since the summer.

Rapids’ talisman Shkelzen Gashi, who scored a brilliant goal in the semifinals, is doubtful with an ankle sprain, while Sounders leading scorer Jordan Morris is working his way back from a hamstring pull.

But the major storyline here doesn’t change: The Sounders have made the playoffs in each of their eight years in MLS, one of the more impressive streaks going in the league. Yet, they’ve never won MLS Cup.

Missing Morris would be a blow, but this matchup is still a great chance for Seattle to reach the final. They have Uruguayan World Cup midfielder Nicolas Lodeiro, one of the most talented players in the league. And, they have momentum. The Sounders are 10-3-3 since Aug. 7, which coincides with Lodeiro’s arrival and the firing of longtime coach Sigi Schmid in favour of assistant Brian Schmetzer, who will surely retain the job now.

It’s been a remarkable turnaround for the Sounders — one of the best late-season reversals in MLS history. They were ninth in the conference four months ago. They would host MLS Cup if Montreal upsets Toronto.

Strange schedule

The playoffs will return with some fanfare because of the huge crowd in Montreal, the intriguing matchup there, and the fact Seattle remains alive.

But it’s hard to escape the feeling that the air gets sucked out of the MLS playoffs when the conference semifinals are followed by an international break. It’s a weird start-stop schedule that does nothing for the casual fan.

It will never happen, but would the league be better off extending the regular season to this most recent international break, and shortening the playoffs to three weeks? Just have the top two teams in each conference square off, then have the winners play for MLS Cup.

It would add importance to a regular season that feels too meaningless at times. It would also allow the league to take a couple more international breaks during the season and stop robbing the paying customer of the top players.

The huge downside, of course, is all the teams who’d be denied the chance to win it all with a late-season surge (currently the top six in each conference make it). The regular-season stretch drive has provided drama in recent years. More drama than many playoff games. Owners would never go for it, of course, even if the purists would love a format that resembles Europe a bit more.

DPs the difference

Just in case the Whitecaps needed to point hammered home, these playoffs have been decided by the designated players: Giovinco and Piatti, Gashi and Lodeiro.

Yes, all four conference finalists can boast about their team performances, about chemistry and unity, and all the intangibles. But, bottom line, their top players have won them games.

We know the Caps aren’t going to spend like Toronto and Seattle. But can the Caps find the right difference-makers for less? It’s a huge off-season for the club as they look to fill Octavio Rivero’s and Pedro Morales’s DP slots.

The low-budget Red Bulls and FC Dallas were great stories this season — stories that Caps’ brass loved pointing out — but what works well over 34 games doesn’t necessarily work over two legs, or one-off playoff games, where moments of magic are that much more vital.

Luck, naturally, plays a bigger role in the playoffs too.

Dallas was hugely unlucky to lose Mauro Diaz to a torn Achilles before the playoffs. Maybe they’d have made a deep run with him and struck another blow for smaller-budget teams. But after Portland and Columbus proved in 2015 that money isn’t everything, this season suggests that money talks. A Toronto-Seattle final would certainly reinforce that. The Timbers and Crew didn’t even make the playoffs this year.

And let’s not buy into Colorado as the little engine that could. Their players, coaches and management deserve huge credit. It’s been a tremendous turnaround for the Rapids. But for context, they also spent $5.4m on three players — Gashi, Howard and Kevin Doyle — which is $1.5m shy of what the Caps spent on their entire roster. Gashi and Howard won them the conference semifinals against L.A. They also have U.S. international Jermaine Jones on the books for $650,000 when he made $3m last season in New England. An impressive bit of business.

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